ASI approves legal changes to Titan Student Center bylaws

The Associated Students Inc. Board of Directors have decided to approve several legal changes to the Titan Student Centers’ policies and bylaws.

The Titan Student Centers consist of the Titan Student Union, the Student Recreation Center, Irvine Fitness Center and Student Lounge. They serve as a hub for cultural, social and intellectual activities and services, while bringing students, staff and faculty together.

ASI Executive Director Dave Edwards said that some of the bylaws had to be changed into policies to simplify the language by eliminating redundancies between the bylaws and policies.

“It’s more of an administrative process where language from the ASI bylaws regarding the Titan Student Centers’ operations were put into a policy state. In cleaning up the bylaws, it is determined that some of that language really should be in a policy statement instead of in the bylaws,” Edwards said.

Bylaws are the rules that are used to govern the organization. They are a set of guidelines that determine the structure and operations within the organization, including specifications for each board member’s role.

Policies, by contrast, are rules actively put in place by the board concerning operating procedures and limiting the activities of each member.

Bylaws are not meant to change as often as policies because they are put in place as long-term guides for the organization to follow.

Policies generally have much more information than bylaws, said Maria Linares, the vice chair secretary for the ASI Board of Directors and member of the Titan Student Centers Governing Board. The TSC Governing Board is in charge of ensuring that all the centers are appropriately used by students, staff and faculty.

Linares said she was actively involved in the process of proposing the bylaw and policy changes and helped in catching the language discrepancies.

“I caught a lot of the pronouns. Basically I had asked them if some of these bylaws had been changed before and they had looked at pronouns.I guess some of them didn’t catch them. I brought it to their attention and they edited it,” Linares said.

The TSC Governing Board is in charge of ensuring that all the centers are used appropriately by students, staff and faculty.

The board had an attorney look over the proposed changes, revising and giving feedback. After the TSC Governing Board approved the changes, they were sent to the ASI Board of Directors for final approval, said Linares.

Board of Directors Chair Tristan Torres said that the changes are purely legal and that one of these changes includes how long a board of directors member will serve.

The changes in the policy will have no major external effect on the TSC, Linares said.

“We wouldn’t ever make these major changes without student feedback. For me personally, it’s really important to get student feedback. I wouldn’t want to make huge major changes that are not involving the students, that’s something I don’t feel comfortable with,” Linares said.

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